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[FallacyofUrist]

Oh, so that's what it meant.

[TheBiggerFish]

Oh, so that's what it meant.

Were the roles also supposed to mean stuff?

[Solifuge]

Here's something I didn't write. Quick Background; John Milo Ford was a Science Fiction author with a habit of engaging in random acts of creativity throughout his day to day life, often in unexpected spaces. Neil Gaiman mentioned him turning memo emails and invitations into songs, etc. If you're curious, here's an online retrospective on some of his works: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/008033.html#008033

Anyway, something about a sonnet like this being written as a passing comment on a blog post really struck me. Ephemeral beauty in an ephemeral place, for ephemeral creatures.


John M. Ford, October 13, 2003

The worm drives helically through the wood
And does not know the dust left in the bore
Once made the table integral and good;
And suddenly the crystal hits the floor.
Electrons find their paths in subtle ways,
A massless eddy in a trail of smoke;
The names of lovers, light of other days --
Perhaps you will not miss them. That's the joke.
The universe winds down. That's how it's made.
But memory is everything to lose;
Although some of the colors have to fade,
Do not believe you'll get the chance to choose.

Regret, by definition, comes too late;
Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate.

[IcyTea31]

Crossposting from mildsad thread to let it rerail:

((I should specify it's better known as "Common Meter" but I find that title lessens it, so I use the less-known name of "Bardic Meter."))

The Ballad Meter's not so strict
yet follows the same rules
a close cousin and soon with it
I'll pay my poem dues

The Ballad Meter is great: it lets me excuse near-rhymes and breaks from meter as 'conversational'.

I should post more in this thread; writing poems is pretty fun, even if I only really use them to be witty when prose just won't cut it.

[StrawBarrel]

Warning: Long poem.

G-9, by Tim Dlugos

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 I’m at a double wake
 in Springfield, for a childhood
 friend and his father
 who died years ago. I join
 my aunt in the queue of mourners
 and walk into a brown study,
 a sepia room with books
 and magazines. The father’s
 in a coffin; he looks exhumed,
 the worse for wear. But where
 my friend’s remains should be
 there’s just the empty base
 of an urn. Where are his ashes?
 His mother hands me
 a paper cup with pills:
 leucovorin, Zovirax,
 and AZT. “Henry
 wanted you to have these,”
 she sneers. “Take all
 you want, for all the good
 they’ll do.” “Dlugos.
 Meester Dlugos.” A lamp
 snaps on. Raquel,
 not Welch, the chubby
 nurse, is standing by my bed.
 It’s 6 a.m., time to flush
 the heplock and hook up
 the I.V. line. False dawn
 is changing into day, infusing
 the sky above the Hudson
 with a flush of light.
 My roommate stirs
 beyond the pinstriped curtain.
 My first time here on G-9,
 the AIDS ward, the cheery
 D & D Building intentionality
 of the decor made me feel
 like jumping out a window.
 I’d been lying on a gurney
 in an E.R. corridor
 for nineteen hours, next to
 a psychotic druggie
 with a voice like Abbie
 Hoffman’s. He was tied
 up, or down, with strips
 of cloth (he’d tried to slug
 a nurse) and sent up
 a grating adenoidal whine
 all night. “Nurse . . . nurse . . .
 untie me, please . . . these
 rags have strange powers.”
 By the time they found
 a bed for me, I was in
 no mood to appreciate the clever
 curtains in my room,
 the same fabric exactly
 as the drapes and sheets
 of a P-town guest house
 in which I once—partied? stayed?
 All I can remember is
 the pattern. Nor did it
 help to have the biggest queen
 on the nursing staff
 clap his hands delightedly
 and welcome me to AIDS-land.
 I wanted to drop
 dead immediately. That
 was the low point. Today
 these people are my friends,
 in the process of restoring
 me to life a second time.
 I can walk and talk
 and breathe simultaneously
 now. I draw a breath
 and sing “Happy Birthday”
 to my roommate Joe.
 He’s 51 today. I didn’t think
 he’d make it. Three weeks
 ago they told him that he had
 aplastic anemia, and nothing
 could be done. Joe had been
 a rotten patient, moaning
 operatically, throwing chairs
 at nurses. When he got
 the bad news, there was
 a big change. He called
 the relatives with whom
 he had been disaffected,
 was anointed and communicated
 for the first time since the age
 of eight when he was raped
 by a priest, and made a will.
 As death drew nearer, Joe
 grew nicer, almost serene.
 Then the anemia
 began to disappear, not
 because of medicines, but
 on its own. Ready to die,
 it looks like Joe has more
 of life to go. He’ll go
 home soon. “When will you
 get out of here?” he asks me.
 I don’t know; when the X-ray
 shows no more pneumonia.
 I’ve been here three weeks
 this time. What have I
 accomplished? Read some
 Balzac, spent “quality
 time” with friends, come back
 from death’s door, and
 prayed, prayed a lot.
 Barry Bragg, a former
 lover of a former
 lover and a new
 Episcopalian, has AIDS too,
 and gave me a leatherbound
 and gold-trimmed copy of the Office,
 the one with all the antiphons.
 My list of daily intercessions
 is as long as a Russian
 novel. I pray about AIDS
 last. Last week I made a list
 of all my friends who’ve died
 or who are living and infected.
 Every day since, I’ve remembered
 someone I forgot to list.
 This morning it was Chasen
 Gaver, the performance poet
 from DC. I don’t know
 if he’s still around. I liked
 him and could never stand
 his poetry, which made it
 difficult to be a friend,
 although I wanted to defend
 him one excruciating night
 at a Folio reading, where
 Chasen snapped his fingers
 and danced around spouting
 frothy nonsense about Andy
 Warhol to the rolling eyes
 of self-important “language-
 centered” poets, whose dismissive
 attitude and ugly manners
 were worse by far than anything
 that Chasen ever wrote.
 Charles was his real name;
 a classmate at Antioch
 dubbed him “Chasen,” after
 the restaurant, I guess.
 Once I start remembering,
 so much comes back.
 There are forty-nine names
 on my list of the dead,
 thirty-two names of the sick.
 Cookie Mueller changed
 lists Saturday. They all
 will, I guess, the living,
 I mean, unless I go
 before them, in which case
 I may be on somebody’s
 list myself. It’s hard
 to imagine so many people
 I love dying, but no harder
 than to comprehend so many
 already gone. My beloved
 Bobby, maniac and boyfriend.
 Barry reminded me that he
 had sex with Bobby
 on the coat pile at this Christmas
 party, two years in a row.
 That’s the way our life
 together used to be, a lot
 of great adventures. Who’ll
 remember Bobby’s stories
 about driving in his debutante
 date’s father’s white Mercedes
 from hole to hole of the golf course
 at the poshest country club
 in Birmingham at 3 a.m.,
 or taking off his clothes
 in the redneck bar on a dare,
 or working on Stay Hungry
 as the dresser of a then-
 unknown named Schwarzenegger.
 Who will be around to anthologize
 his purple cracker similes:
 “Sweatin’ like a nigger
 on Election Day,” “Hotter
 than a half-fucked fox
 in a forest fire.” The ones
 that I remember have to do
 with heat, Bobby shirtless,
 sweating on the dance floor
 of the tiny bar in what is now
 a shelter for the indigent
 with AIDS on the dockstrip,
 stripping shirts off Chuck Shaw,
 Barry Bragg and me, rolling
 up the tom rags, using them
 as pom-poms, then bolting
 off down West Street, gracefully
 (despite the overwhelming
 weight of his inebriation)
 vaulting over trash cans
 as he sang, “I like to be
 in America” in a Puerto Rican
 accent. When I pass,
 who’ll remember, who will care
 about these joys and wonders?
 I’m haunted by that more
 than by the faces
 of the dead and dying.
 A speaker crackles near
 my bed and nurses
 streak down the corridor.
 The black guy on the respirator
 next door bought the farm,
 Maria tells me later, but
 only when I ask. She has tears
 in her eyes. She’d known him
 since his first day on G-9
 a long time ago. Will I also
 become a fond, fondly regarded
 regular, back for stays
 the way retired retiring
 widowers return to the hotel
 in Nova Scotia or Provence
 where they vacationed with
 their wives? I expect so, although
 that’s down the road; today’s
 enough to fill my plate. A bell
 rings, like the gong that marks
 the start of a fight. It’s 10
 and Derek’s here to make
 the bed, Derek who at 16
 saw Bob Marley’s funeral
 in the football stadium
 in Kingston, hot tears
 pouring down his face.
 He sings as he folds
 linens, “You can fool
 some of the people some
 of the time,” dancing
 a little softshoe as he works.
 There’s a reason he came in
 just now; Divorce Court
 drones on Joe’s TV, and
 Derek is hooked. I can’t
 believe the script is plausible
 to him, Jamaican hipster
 that he is, but he stands
 transfixed by the parade
 of faithless wives and screwed-up
 husbands. The judge is testy;
 so am I, unwilling
 auditor of drivel. Phone
 my friends to block it out:
 David, Jane and Eileen. I missed
 the bash for David’s magazine
 on Monday and Eileen’s reading
 last night. Jane says that
 Marie-Christine flew off
 to Marseilles where her mother
 has cancer of the brain,
 reminding me that AIDS
 is just a tiny fragment
 of life’s pain. Eileen has
 been thinking about Bobby, too,
 the dinner that we threw
 when he returned to New York
 after getting sick. Pencil-thin,
 disfigured by KS, he held forth
 with as much kinetic charm
 as ever. What we have
 to cherish is not only
 what we can recall of how
 things were before the plague,
 but how we each responded
 once it started. People
 have been great to me.
 An avalanche of love
 has come my way
 since I got sick, and not
 just moral support.
 Jaime’s on the board
 of PEN’s new fund
 for AIDS; he’s helping out.
 Don Windham slipped a check
 inside a note, and Brad
 Gooch got me something
 from the Howard Brookner Fund.
 Who’d have thought when we
 dressed up in ladies’
 clothes for a night for a hoot
 in Brad (“June Buntt”) and
 Howard (“Lili La Lean”)’s suite
 at the Chelsea that things
 would have turned out this way:
 Howard is dead at 35, Chris Cox
 (“Kay Sera Sera”)’s friend Bill
 gone too, “Bernadette of Lourdes”
 (guess who) with AIDS,
 God knows how many positive.
 Those 14th Street wigs and enormous
 stingers and Martinis don’t
 provoke nostalgia for a time
 when love and death were less
 inextricably linked, but
 for the stories we would tell
 the morning after, best
 when they involved our friends,
 second-best, our heroes.
 J.J. Mitchell was master
 of the genre. When he learned
 he had AIDS, I told him
 he should write them down.
 His mind went first. I’ll tell you
 one of his best. J.J. was
 Jerome Robbins’ houseguest
 At Bridgehampton. Every morning
 they would have a contest
 to see who could finish
 the Times crossword first.
 Robbins always won, until
 a day when he was clearly
 baffled. Grumbling, scratching
 over letters, he finally
 threw his pen down. “J.J.,
 tell me what I’m doing wrong.”
 One clue was “Great 20th-c.
 choreographer.” The solution
 was “Massine,” but Robbins
 had placed his own name
 in the space. Every word
 around it had been changed
 to try to make the puzzle
 work, except that answer.
 At this point there’d be
 a horsey laugh from J.J.
 —“Isn’t that great?”
 he’d say through clenched
 teeth (“Locust Valley lockjaw”).
 It was, and there were lots
 more where that one came from,
 only you can’t get there anymore.
 He’s dropped into the maw
 waiting for the G-9
 denizens and for all flesh,
 as silent as the hearts
 that beat upon the beds
 up here: the heart of the drop-
 dead beautiful East Village
 kid who came in yesterday,
 Charles Frost’s heart nine inches
 from the spleen they’re taking
 out tomorrow, the heart of
 the demented girl whose screams
 roll down the hallways
 late at night, hearts that long
 for lovers, for reprieve,
 for old lives, for another chance.
 My heart, so calm most days,
 sinks like a brick
 to think of all that heartache.
 I’ve been staying sane with
 program tools, turning everything
 over to God “as I understand
 him.” I don’t understand him.
 Thank God I read so much
 Calvin last spring; the absolute
 necessity of blind obedience
 to a sometimes comforting,
 sometimes repellent, always
 incomprehensible Source
 of light and life stayed
 with me. God can seem
 so foreign, a parent
 from another country,
 like my Dad and his own
 father speaking Polish
 in the kitchen. I wouldn’t
 trust a father or a God
 too much like me, though.
 That is why I pack up all
 my cares and woes, and load them
 on the conveyor belt, the speed
 of which I can’t control, like
 Chaplin on the assembly line
 in Modern Times or Lucy on TV.
 I don’t need to run
 machines today. I’m standing
 on a moving sidewalk
 headed for the dark
 or light, whatever’s there.
 Duncan Hannah visits, and
 we talk of out-of-body
 experiences. His was
 amazing. Bingeing on vodka
 in his dorm at Bard, he woke
 to see a naked boy
 in fetal posture on the floor.
 Was it a corpse, a classmate,
 a pickup from the blackout
 of the previous night? Duncan
 didn’t know. He struggled
 out of bed, walked over
 to the youth, and touched
 his shoulder. The boy turned;
 it was Duncan himself.
 My own experience was
 milder, don’t make me flee
 screaming from the room
 as Duncan did. It happened
 on a Tibetan meditation
 weekend at the Cowley Fathers’
 house in Cambridge.
 Michael Koonsman led it,
 healer whose enormous paws
 directed energy. He touched
 my spine to straighten up
 my posture, and I gasped
 at the rush. We were chanting
 to Tara, goddess of compassion
 and peace, in the basement chapel
 late at night. I felt myself
 drawn upward, not levitating
 physically, but still somehow
 above my body. A sense
 of bliss surrounded me.
 It lasted ten or fifteen
 minutes. When I came down,
 my forehead hurt. The spot
 where the “third eye” appears
 in Buddhist art felt
 as though someone had pushed
 a pencil through it.
 The soreness lasted for a week.
 Michael wasn’t surprised.
 He did a lot of work
 with people with AIDS
 in the epidemic’s early days
 but when he started losing
 weight and having trouble
 with a cough, he was filled
 with denial. By the time
 he checked into St. Luke’s,
 he was in dreadful shape.
 The respirator down his throat
 squelched the contagious
 enthusiasm of his voice,
 but he could still spell out
 what he wanted to say
 on a plastic Ouija board
 beside his bed. When
 the doctor who came in
 to tell him the results
 of his bronchoscopy said,
 “Father, I’m afraid I have
 bad news,” Michael grabbed
 the board and spelled,
 “The truth is always
 Good News.” After he died,
 I had a dream in which
 I was a student in a class
 that he was posthumously
 teaching. With mock annoyance
 he exclaimed, “Oh, Tim!
 I can’t believe you really think
 that AIDS is a disease!”
 There’s evidence in that
 direction, I’ll tell him
 if the dream recurs: the shiny
 hamburger-in-lucite look
 of the big lesion on my face;
 the smaller ones I daub
 with makeup; the loss
 of forty pounds in a year;
 the fatigue that comes on
 at the least convenient times.
 The symptoms float like algae
 on the surface of the grace
 that buoys me up today.
 Arthur comes in with
 the Sacrament, and we have
 to leave the room (Joe’s
 Italian family has arrived
 for birthday cheer) to find
 some quiet. Walk out
 to the breezeway, where
 it might as well be
 August for the stifling
 heat. On Amsterdam,
 pedestrians and drivers are
 oblivious to our small aerie,
 as we peer through the grille
 like cloistered nuns. Since
 leaving G-9 the first time,
 I always slow my car down
 on this block, and stare up
 at this window, to the unit
 where my life was saved.
 It’s strange how quickly
 hospitals feel foreign
 when you leave, and how normal
 their conventions seem as soon
 as you check in. From below,
 it’s like checking out the windows
 of the West Street Jail; hard
 to imagine what goes on there,
 even if you know firsthand.
 The sun is going down as I
 receive communion. I wish
 the rite’s familiar magic
 didn’t dull my gratitude
 for this enormous gift.
 I wish I had a closer personal
 relationship with Christ,
 which I know sounds corny
 and alarming. Janet Campbell
 gave me a remarkable ikon
 the last time I was here;
 Christ is in a chair, a throne,
 and St. John the Divine,
 an androgyne who looks a bit
 like Janet, rests his head
 upon the Savior’s shoulder.
 James Madden, priest of Cowley,
 dead of cancer earlier
 this year at 39, gave her
 the image, telling her not to
 be afraid to imitate St. John.
 There may come a time when
 I’m unable to respond with words,
 or works, or gratitude to AIDS;
 a time when my attitude
 caves in, when I’m as weak
 as the men who lie across
 the dayroom couches hour
 after hour, watching sitcoms,
 drawing blanks. Maybe
 my head will be shaved
 and scarred from surgery;
 maybe I’ll be pencil-
 thin and paler than
 a ghost, pale as the vesper
 light outside my window now.
 It would be good to know
 that I could close my eyes
 and lean my head back
 on his shoulder then,
 as natural and trusting
 as I’d be with a cherished
 love. At this moment,
 Chris walks in, Christopher
 Earl Wiss of Kansas City
 and New York, my lover,
 my last lover, my first
 healthy and enduring relationship
 in sobriety, the man
 with whom I choose
 to share what I have
 left of life and time.
 This is the hardest
 and happiest moment
 of the day. G-9
 is no place to affirm
 a relationship. Two hours
 in a chair beside my bed
 after eight hours of work
 night after night for weeks
 … it’s been a long haul,
 and Chris gets tired.
 Last week he exploded,
 “I hate this, I hate your
 being sick and having AIDS
 and lying in a hospital
 where I can only see you
 with a visitor’s pass. I hate
 that this is going to
 get worse.” I hate it,
 too. We kiss, embrace,
 and Chris climbs into bed
 beside me, to air-mattress
 squeaks. Hold on. We hold on
 to each other, to a hope
 of how we’ll be when I get out.
 Let him hold on, please
 don’t let him lose his
 willingness to stick with me,
 to make love and to make
 love work, to extend
 the happiness we’ve shared.
 Please don’t let AIDS
 make me a monster
 or a burden is my prayer.
 Too soon, Chris has to leave.
 I walk him to the elevator
 bank, then totter back
 so Raquel can open my I.V.
 again. It’s not even
 mid-evening, but I’m nodding
 off. My life’s so full, even
 (especially?) when I’m here
 on G-9. When it’s time
 to move on to the next step,
 that will be a great adventure,
 too. Helena Hughes, Tibetan
 Buddhist, tells me that
 there are three stages in death.
 The first is white, like passing
 through a thick but porous wall.
 The second stage is red;
 the third is black; and then
 you’re finished, ready
 for the next event. I’m glad
 she has a road map, but I don’t
 feel the need for one myself.
 I’ve trust enough in all
 that’s happened in my life,
 the unexpected love
 and gentleness that rushes in
 to fill the arid spaces
 in my heart, the way the city
 glow fills up the sky
 above the river, making it
 seem less than night. When
 Joe O’Hare flew in last week,
 he asked what were the best
 times of my New York years;
 I said “Today,” and meant it.
 I hope that death will lift me
 by the hair like an angel
 in a Hebrew myth, snatch me with
 the strength of sleep’s embrace,
 and gently set me down
 where I’m supposed to be,
 in just the right place.

[KiwiOui]

Okay, this is a very simple poem, and not my work. From what I know, this poem is the spawn of the internet, thus being primarily comedic.

Roses are red,
violets are blue,
but in Soviet Russia,
poem write you.

Thought it was worth a chuckle. 

[Tomasque]

I'm getting back into poetry. Not only will it give me something to do, but it'll also keep this thread alive.

Spoiler: The Yellow Wallpaper (click to show/hide)

Written by me
Based on a short story of the small name

It is dark, and only the moonlight moves in this place.

 That pale light shift across the wall, making yellow seem like white.
The wallpaper is what I watch - it keeps me up at night.
I trace my eyes across it all:
The pattern on the moonlit wall;
The shadows seem to rise and fall

 But now I am unsure of something that I know is right.
Its what is moving here: Not the material, but light.
My eyes must be deceiving me,
For what I'm watching cannot be;
Moving lines is what I see.

The  visions do not cease - only increase with my own fright:
The wallpaper sags but that pattern-fungus holds it tight.
It spreads quick across the wall
In a crawl - I see it all.
It's vertical waves make it tall.

 Then eyes of heads of women trapped franticly are bit-
ing at the wallpaper to be free - but the light
so still - solid - keeps them all
behind bars of moonlit wall
while I watch them push and crawl.

 The paper's bursting at the seams now
Shrieking in the air as out bursts a twisted face
The fungus twisting
It's still resisting
It is dark and only moonlight is still in this place.

[Tomasque]

I'm trying to get a friend into poetry, so I desperately need some great new poems to get her into a creative mood.

[TD1]

Ohh, I recommend Tennyson's Ulysseys (from which came the immortal words "All experience is an arch where through gleams that untraveled world." Mrs. Malone is quite good as well, by Farjeon. Larkin's "An Arundel Tomb" is also one of my favourites (What will survive of us is love.) Rudyard Kipling's "If" is good as well, as is "The Highwayman" and "The Listeners" ("No head from the leaf fringed sill looked down into his grey eyes where he stood perplexed and still"). Byron is always good for romantic poetry (she walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climes), as is Shelley (Ozymandias), and Tolkien is brilliant for fantasy poetry, e.g. the "Song of Beren and Luthien." I also highly recommend Yeats, his poetry is brilliant. A Circus Animals Desertion and Sailing to Byzantium ("an old man is but a paltry thing, a battered coat upon a stick, unless soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing for every tatter in its mortal dress") are both very good. Really, I could go on - and will, if you want me to - but these are just the sort of general ones that came to mind. She could take part in the Poetry Prompts thread, maybe? I'm using it myself for practice.

[TD1]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Awake at night, the cold air
Blowing in through an open window
The only light, this screen
This cold, cold light
Not even stars are seen
Out through that Pluto's square
And all seems washed of colour,
Desolate at the sun's demise.
Looming peripherals
Block my sight, but still I know
The lampshade feels the night
And cries within. It's white
But looks somehow less,
Drained and used. No light
Uses its draped canvas for art
For it is late, and all there is
Is that cold, cold screen
Echoing the emptiness,
The barren nothingness
That seems to have its grip
Within my soul.

Doublepost and necro, but wanted to share it. If there were a late-night-maudlin thread, I'd use it instead.

[Edmus]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Awake at night, the cold air
Blowing in through an open window
The only light, this screen
This cold, cold light
Not even stars are seen
Out through that Pluto's square
And all seems washed of colour,
Desolate at the sun's demise.
Looming peripherals
Block my sight, but still I know
The lampshade feels the night
And cries within. It's white
But looks somehow less,
Drained and used. No light
Uses its draped canvas for art
For it is late, and all there is
Is that cold, cold screen
Echoing the emptiness,
The barren nothingness
That seems to have its grip
Within my soul.

Doublepost and necro, but wanted to share it. If there were a late-night-maudlin thread, I'd use it instead.

Is that yours?
I very much enjoy the imagery, it gives a starlit feel.
Doesn't nothingness=nothing?
Anyway, if that's yours a proper pat on the back, 'cause I'm digging it.

[TD1]

It is indeed mine, so thank you.

And yes, nothingness does equal nothing, but I have an irrational preference for the word "nothingness." I think the "ness" adds a certain sense that it has a substance or reality? I'm not entirely sure - I just wrote it in.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Loving this stuff. Hope there's more.

[coleslaw35]

Spoiler: Blood of Oil, Tears of Bullets, Hearts of Ice (click to show/hide)

War.
The greatest folly of mankind,
And the most potent of all, I find.
On oil and steel these countries dine,
So that they may push to the Volga or Rhine.

Nationalism takes hold, the people sing,
Awaiting orders from their "righteous" king.
To nations bordered and afar,
Guns, bullets, and death they bring.

War carried out, casualties mount up
As more men equip their bullpups.
Death and destruction
They pour into their cups.

Victory and defeat, both in sight.
Neither country fully right.
But each combatant continues on
In order to finish their horrid fight.

Over the hills and plains men walk,
Their eyes, focused, like hawks.
Professors of combat, their guns chalk.
To the enemy's capital for a lecture they flock.

Men, young and old,
For their country they are bold.
To kill and conquer they are told.
And so their hearts grow arctic cold.

Victory achieved
Or so they believed
For there was no winning
When families grieved

Maimed, yet no crutch
All that is gained,
Well, not much.

Widows and children, pained
Mothers and fathers, tear stained
War, but a bane.

On history a smudge is placed
Of which wishes to be erased
A time of bayonets affixed
An era of hostilities to never be fixed

Eventually forgotten, the memory is erased
Until one day an old minefield faced
War's fetid aftertaste.

[Tomasque]

FEED ME

"No! I'm not dealing with this!"

😂